You are here

Gun Safety

Gun violence in the United States is not inevitable, nor should Americans accept it as the status quo. Congress, the Administration, state and local governments, and the American people need to address this issue for what it is: a crisis that threatens the well-being and peace of mind of urban and rural communities across the country.

Representative Blumenauer authored a report, Enough Is Enough: A Comprehensive Plan to Improve Gun Safety. While there is no single solution to the challenges associated with gun violence, insight can be gained from other challenges that the United States has faced and overcome. Using the examples of automobile safety and tobacco use, two significant public safety challenges where the government responded in ways that dramatically reduced injury and death, success came from defining the problem, identifying risk factors, testing prevention strategies, and ensuring widespread adoption of effective solutions. By applying that same process we can begin to make incremental progress to reduce gun-related deaths and injuries. Even though levels of violence have decreased since their peak several years ago, gun violence is still one of the leading causes of death in the United States.

The stark fact is that Americans suffer more gun violence than any other developed country.

In an average day in America, there are 31 firearm homicides.

On average, there are 53 firearm suicides each day, and firearm suicide attempts are lethal 85% of the time - more lethal than other attempted suicide means.

In 2013 - the most recent year available for statistics - there were 33,636 deaths due to injury by firearm. These include 11,208 homicides, 21,175 suicides, and 505 accidental deaths.